With the winter upon us on the northern hemisphere I am always looking for ways to stay warm while being able to operate my camera effectively. Recently I have been using these new gloves and they have quickly become one of my recent favorite photo accessories. The Sensory Gloves from Aquatech are comfortable, waterproof and have a breathable outer shell, but they have one very innovative feature that make them perfect for the photographer. Watch this quick video review to find out.
If you are interested in getting your own pair, head on over to our store
Think back to when you were a kid, heading to school in the snow or rain.
Your mom dressed you up to look like that poor little kid in Christmas Story, including horrendous, floppy black galoshes. You just knew that the other kids would make fun of your big floppy rubber boots.
Things have changed dramatically today. Galoshes, renamed overshoes, have gone hi-tech. Gone are the slippery soles, the big ugly buckles and the floppy rubber. Modern material, grippy soles and a tight fit take their place. New overshoes fit like shoes, are easy to walk in, and most importantly, keep your feet warm and dry.
The best overshoes we’ve seen are made by NEOS, a company that makes both consumer and industrial footwear. Their “uppers” are made from waterproofed Denier nylon (think high-end backpacks) and their soles are lugged just like your favorite hiking boot. They are pretty snazzy-looking too!
NEOS come in insulated and non-insulated styles. The non-insulated overshoes at 20º of warmth to your feet and the insulated styles add 40º. The NEOS Navigator even has a 5” gaiter you can extend out of top of the boot for deep snow.
These new NEOS overshoes are high-tech and dare we say, even fashionable. You won’t have the big kids teasing you anymore with these.
You can check out the NEOS overshoe line in the Store here: NEOS
I recently had to opportunity to test and review the Mongoose M 3.5b Gimbal Tripod Head for super telephoto lenses. The first thing I have to say is that I am very impressed with this compact and lightweight gimbal head. Very lightweight and packs easily.
Craftsmanship is superb, and you can tell the folks at 4th Generation Designs really paid close attention to detail.
Check out this short video review. You can see all of the wonderful 4th Generation Designs line in the OPG Store here.
Make sure and visit the entertaining and informative site and blog by Rick Sammon and Juan Pons, the Digital Photo Experience.
I feel like a gunslinger. Draw, pardner! Only instead of a six-shooter, I have my spanking new Canon 7D by my hip. Up comes the camera, fast and ready to shoot.
For events, parties or photo walks, the Black Rapid camera straps give you instant access to your camera, and keep weight strain off of your neck. Black Rapid straps are worn across your body like a sling, and attach to your camera via the tripod socket.
Sound unique? It is. The Black Rapids are comfortable and adjustable, and will have you saying “why didn’t I think of that!” With the camera at your hip or behind your back, you can maneuver easily through a crowd, carry a tripod or other gear, or simply have both hands free. When you’re ready to take the shot, the camera quickly glides up the strap into shooting position.
The Black Rapids are made of ripstop nylon and have nice mesh cushioned shoulder pads with various pockets. The straps come in two models with different sized pads and pockets. A double model is available for a camera at each hip. You can also get extra camera attachments to change gear quickly. Black Rapid has also come out with new "MODS" such as extra pouches.
The Black Rapids just may become the strap of choice for mobile photographers.
You can get more information and purchase the Black Rapids in the OPG store.
Here is a quick video I shot with Rick recently on the Black Rapid camera straps.
juan Pons is a big fan of the Think Tank Photo brand of camera bags. Take a look at his video review of Think Tank's StreetWalker line of photo backpacks. You'll find it informative.
You can check out the entire Think Tank Photo line of bags in our store.
Yes, it's that time of year again, where gift idea lists multiply like holiday bunnies. We're no exception. We've tried to make this gift idea list simple--nothing requiring sizing or items for specific equipment. That way, you can print this article out and give it to your favorite gift giver (a yellow highlighter would help) or heck, just buy the stuff for yourself.
One of our best sellers this cold season. Holes in the neoprene tips of your thumb and forefinger let you operate your camera (and iPhone!) in cold weather while keeping your gloves on. $49.95
From colored filters to snoots to grids, the stuff from Honl takes your flash to another level. If you don't know what a "snoot" is, you should at least check it out so you can use it in everyday conversation. $9.95 to $29.95
Hands down the best lightweight portable seating around. So light and compact you can hang it from your belt. You'll find so many uses for this stool you'll keep it in your vehicle permanently. $69.95 to $79.95
A lightweight personal blind that really works. Covers you and your gear. We keep asking them to make a blind that looks like our couch so we can watch football games in peace. $99.95
Ultimate Photo Gifts You May Have To Buy For Yourself
We can't say enough about this bag in a short amount of space. The best photo backpack on the market: lightweight (only 4 lbs), unique, spacious and essential for international travel. A must have. $399
We just picked up the Travel Angel tripod line, and it is impressive. Folds 180 back for incredible pack-ability. Several models to choose from, each with a ballhead. $249.95 to $481.95
If you shoot with long lenses a gimbal head makes pointing your lens a breeze. A new entry to the market, Induro saves over $100, is a better performing gimbal head, has more features and and shows an incredible fit and finish. We are selling our existing heads and switching to this one. $488.95
A stainless steel and carbon fiber tripod that lives for salt water. Expensive, but if you shoot in salt, you will find this tripod indispensable. $1050
OK, we said we would stay away from products with sizes, but we just cant resisit this one. Available in fleece and in goretex, these are the ultimate photography jackets. More nooks and crannies than any vest, padded shoulders and so warm you can't put them on inside. An incredible luxury gift for yourself. $349.95 to $449.95
I chose to try this Compact Flash Adapter from Delkin because I like the idea of having a slimline adapter that I can throw into my laptop PC bag and forget about, rather than the slightly larger multi-card adapter that I have now. The versatility of the multi-card adapter is nice, but the only memory cards I use other than Compact Flash are SDHC cards, and I already have a slot for SDHC cards built into my laptop. I also having an adapter for Compact Flash with no cables helps me to reduce the number of cables I carry, as my multi-card adapter requires a separate cable.
On opening the box, the adapter seems to be built well. There’s some plastic but with aluminum covers on both sides, it seems sturdy enough. I didn’t find the manual too easy to understand. It is obviously an English translation from another language, and it hasn’t been done that well. It says on the box that you need to grab the drivers from the Web, which I did, but when you try to install the drivers, a message saying that the card cannot be found is displayed, despite the adapter already being inserted into my Express Card slot. It took me a little while to figure out that before my laptop computer will recognize the Compact Flash Adapter, you have to actually insert a compact flash card into the adapter. Once you do that, the computer recognizes the adapter and you can run the driver install program.
There are two modes that you can install the drivers in. One is Fast Removal Optimized, and the other is Performance Optimized. As my main aim in these tests was to see how fast the card adapter is, I chose Performance Optimized initially. My test was relatively simple, just wanting to see the raw speed on the transfer of images from the card to the computer. I simply filled a Lexar 8GB UDMA 300x Compact Flash Card with images from my 5D Mark II, and transferred them to the hard drive using Windows Explorer. I didn’t import into Lightroom or anything, I just transferred the files.
There were 314 files in total, filling the usable memory on the card to the tune of 7.4GB. Transfering to my hard drive to 4:18 (four minutes and eighteen seconds) in Performance mode. As I intended to run another test from my USB 2.0 multi-card reader after this, to ensure that multiple transfers of the same files didn’t get any faster due to caching by the OS, I did the first transfer twice. The speed was exactly the same, 4:18, for both transfers.
I then took my USB 2.0 multi-card reader from another well known electronics manufacturer, and transferred the same files from the same CF card to a new folder on the same internal hard drive on my laptop computer. This time, the transfer took 4:58 (four minutes and fifty eight seconds). This means the transfer using the Express Card Compact Flash Adapter from Delkin is around 15% faster than a pretty normal USB 2.0 multi-card adapter. The difference isn’t staggering, but it’s definitely faster.
I then uninstalled the drivers for the CF adapter, and reinstalled them in the Fast Removal Optimized mode, wondering how much slower it would be over the Performance mode, and repeated the transfer, once again, using the same card, with the same files. I was surprised to see that this transfer was actually faster than the Performance Mode, at 4:08 (four minutes and eight seconds).
The driver installer dialog states that “Fast Removal Optimized would disable the Write Cache feature of Windows and the Disk. Performance Optimized would enable the feature.” Thinking about this, why would I even want the Windows Write Cache feature turned on for this card, as my main objective is to Read from it? Apart from when writing a firmware update to a compact flash card, I can’t think of any time that I write data to a card.
Anyway, with Fast Removal Optimized selected, the Delkin Express Card 34 Compact Flash Adapter is 17% faster than my standard USB 2.0 multi-card reader, so that’s a little more significant. At 50 seconds faster per 8GB, when I come in after a day in the freezing cold after photographing Red-Crowned Cranes and Eagles in Hokkaido, and I have up to forty gigabytes of data to transfer, that’s over four minutes faster. And that means I can hit that nice warm Japanese bath four minutes earlier!
Coupled with the fact that Delkin adapter is sturdy, slimline and doesn’t require a USB cable, I’m overall very happy with it, to the point that I can forgive the badly translated manual and the slightly hard to understand logic of the drivers. I’ll definitely be picking one of these up for myself in my next order from Outdoor Photo Gear. Thumbs up!
Pelican Memory Card Case
OPG LED Lighted Cap
LensCoat FlashKeeper
AquaTech Sensory Gloves
Jobu Design Triple Axis Bubble Level
I recently gave the 
